Change size of added text in Preview PDF?

I constantly use the Preview app on my Mac system to fill in forms and other paperwork. Works great. Except when the font is too big, at which point I’m stuck because I can’t figure out how to make the text smaller. Help!

Of all the apps that get zero visibility in the Mac universe, there are few as useful and powerful as “Preview”. It has a lot of capabilities that most people don’t realize because I suspect that just about everyone uses it as a PDF reader and nothing else. But it actually lets you annotate PDFs and fill in PDF-based forms, among other things. You can also consolidate multiple PDFs into one, remove specific pages if you want to tweak things, and much more.

Heck, you can scan and then insert your actual signature, something I’ve been doing for years with great effect.

Frankly, I would be happy if I never had to print out a document so I could fill it out. But that’s another story.

The way that it’s designed to work with text annotation, however, is frustrating because there’s a menu item that’s not the correct choice, even though it absolutely seems like it should be.

Here’s an example. I’m filling out a PDF form and click in the space, then type in my name:

That’s big for the space allocated. Not so good.

I click out of the region, then click on it again to select it, then look on the “Tools” menu:

“Adjust Size…”. That’s it!

But it’s not. That’s why it’s grayed out. Confusing, eh?

Instead, you need to actually bring up the Edit Toolbar by clicking on the tiny toolbox at the top right of the document:

Ahhh… now you see the toolbar and can click on the “A” (font) menu:

That’s it. Just choose a smaller font size and it’ll clean up that doc in no time:

That’s much better. Even more useful, you also just set the new default as Preview remembers the last font size you specified, so next time it’ll be 12pt Helvetica, or whatever you specified.

That’s it. Glad you know about the secret powers of Preview. It’s one of my favorite Mac apps.

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I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by
buying you a cup of coffee!

19 comments on “Change size of added text in Preview PDF?”

This was amazing! I even created my signature right on the tool bar by writing it on a white paper, putting it to the camera and boom, signature created and I was able to sign the document. I would not have been able to do this without this article.

Some people need the “… for dummies” description. Others figure out that this is indeed for annotations given the description of operations Dave detailed. Those of us not needing “… for dummies” figure out that forms using proprietary additions to PDF that were created by adobe with controls on input values and predetermined font sizes can indeed be filled in with annotations with a little extra work. As detailing how to do so goes beyond the “… for dummies” you need I won’t confuse you by detailing it here other than mentioning rectangles and text regions.

Hey Dave,
Happy to see you pop up in search results today. I’m trying to change the size of an entire PDF and change size, as well as change color, is greyed out. Preview for Mac has made it easy to change and optimize the size of a .jpg for web use, but will it not change PDFs?

Hi Paul. The easiest way to change the size of a PDF (I assume you mean file size, not the physical dimensions of the “page” it’s using for layout: that’s a far, far harder problem) is to “Save As…” in Preview and fiddle with the options to try and shrink the resultant file down. There are also third-party apps to reduce PDF size and you can also try “Save as PDF” from the Print dialog window too.

DHC,
So, as a hack-y workaround, print the form to a new PDF (click the PDF button in the lower left of the print dialog) and then annotate the new PDF file! The person receiving the form won’t know the difference.

I’m so glad I found your website, this is useful and handy information. My problem is that the fonts float above the line provided making it difficult to read in areas where there is text above the fill-in space.